Copied from UKP - The Great Escape
As those of you who read my blogs know, my gran has recently bought a timeshare in Fairyland. We (the family) have been struggling to make sure that she has the sort of care that she needs. When I say struggle, I dont mean that its been a burden, but that we as a family have never had to deal with anything like this before, so close to home. There have been many times when we have been dong all we can and not feeling like it is enough and feeling guilty that we are not giving her the right sort of care. We have discussed many times the fact that gran will eventually need to be cared for and we have been aware that form of care is most likely to take the form of a residential or nursing home.
To get a family member into a nursing home, they have to be assessed and it seemed to us leading up to Xmas and over the Xmas period that gran seemed to be becoming increasingly more mad. From magic mats to vanishing remote controls to washing her dishes with the toilet brush (again).
Her medication was increased but in all honesty it didn't seem to be having any effect. She is taken to a "memory clinic" about once every 2 months for them to see how she is progressing and to see how the medication is working and while she is there, we get her assessed by the nurse too, to try and keep her time with strangers and being poked and prodded to a minimum. We are very fortunate in that the nurse is a lovely girl and does her best to try and give us what we need and just after xmas, she contacted my mum to let her know that she was going to organise for people to go into my grans home 3 times a day as opposed to the once a day that she was currently getting. One of those support workers must have said something to the nurse about how bad my gran was because on the friday of the week she started getting the additional care, we got a call from the nurse telling us that she felt gran should go in for residential assessment. This means that she goes into an assessment nursing home for a period of time and they decide if she needs permanent residential care.
She was taken in on the monday. We were told that we could not visit however we could ring and they would let us know how she was doing.
The first night she was very agitated. It was to be expected... she was somewhere new, somewhere she didnt know and considering there were times she got anxious in her own home (thinking it wasnt hers) we kinda expected that it might take her a little time to settle. What we didnt expect was for her to lead a revolution and attempt to break out all the residents.
It turns out after another difficult night of tears and recriminations on Tuesday, Wednesday night was to be something films will be made of. Grandmother, along with about ten other residents made a bid for freedom! We arent exactly sure the circumstances were, but it seems some time after midnight, gran got herself up and dressed and persuaded several other residents to do the same and join her in "getting out". They made for a fire door and on opening it, set off an alarm. The guards, sorry nurses.. alerted by this, scrambled to get them back, there then ensued (quoting the nurse that called my mum to let her know) a "Benny Hill" half hour as they chased and hunted for the elderly and infirm escapees around the nursing home.
It seems she has since tried to escape every day and keeps trying to take one of the other male residents with her as she now believes he is her husband. When not trying to escape, she nags him terribly and aparently today blattered him for not taking her home when she demanded! God help the man, acording to the staff he's as mad as she and hasnt a clue why this mad woman keeps attacking him!
You want to know the funny thing tho... none of these antics fall into the category of "actions that mean you need residential care".
No seriously... it seems they have a very strict criteria. They need to assess if she can dress herself, make a cup of tea, wash herself... those sorts of things. If she can do all these, aparently she is fit to be living at home because she can still care for herself with support.
The problem is, that my gran can do all of the above, but she doesnt. She doesn't wash, because she doesnt remember that she hasnt done it. She puts on the same clothes day after day, to the point that we have to spill something on her to make her change, because she doesnt remember that she had them on the day before, or the day before that. She can make tea, but as she did the last time I was there, boils the kettle and thinks she's had a cuppa and something to eat along with it
She is very resistant to letting strangers into the house and its been a real struggle to get her to allow the other carers in, and when they do come in and try to make her something to eat, she gets angry and wont let them because she tells them shes already eaten. *sigh* its all a bit of a bugger.
Still.. I have to admit I am hoping that after her 3 week assessment they are going to realise that while she is not regressing and forgetting HOW do do things, that the dementia is a problem because she is simply forgetting to do things.
In the mean time.. watch this space for my hollywood break through, I'm off to sell Ridley Scott his next block buster all action film. Stalag Luft 83
